Road Rights and Bicycle Advocacy

When the Cop Says Stop

What do you do when you know your area's bike laws, but the police don't?

bob mionske

And then things went from bad to worse. Sometime during the altercation the Chesapeake, Ohio police showed up, and as Tony and the Deputy struggled, Tony was tased again, this time, by the Chesapeake police. According to the Deputy's report, the tasing occurred as "Patrick lunged at me," while according to Tony and Ryan, the second tasing occurred as Tony was resisting the Deputy's attempts to beat him. Unlike the first tasing, however, this time, the taser connected; as Tony tells it, "I shoot up on my toes like a ballerina, then fall over like a log." He landed on his right elbow, and hit his head hard enough to crack his helmet. "If I hadn't been wearing my helmet," Tony notes, "I would have cracked my head open."

Ryan says that at this point, with Tony now laying on the ground, the officer tased Tony a third time. In notes he made shortly after the incident, Ryan says that Tony was tased a total of five times by Chesapeake Police officers; Tony says we was tased "repeatedly." The Deputy's report states that:

"He went to the ground and we kept giving him commands to stay down and he tried to get up and he was Tazed for the second time. He finally became compliant and he was handcuffed."

Meanwhile, Ryan had been waiting quietly nearby, watching the entire surreal scene play out before him; now, as the officers were tasing and cuffing Tony, Ryan tried to call his mother to let her know what was going on. As he was making the call, somebody shouted "Watch out for the other guy!" Taking heed of that warning, one officer kicked the phone out of Ryan's hand, just as he connected with his mother; the phone went flying, and shattered when it hit the pavement. The officer then slammed Ryan face-first to the ground and handcuffed him.

At the other end of the connection, Ryan's mother heard him say, "Mom!...Mom!..." and the sound of sirens in the background, and then the impact of the phone hitting the pavement, before it shattered and the connection went dead. Not knowing what had happened, Ryan says she was absolutely terrified by the call.

Meanwhile, back at the arrest scene, Ryan complained that his handcuffs were too tight; he says that one of the officers remarked, "You should have thought of that before being a smart ass." That seemed to be a common theme with the officers. As Tony recalls, the law enforcement officers were "extremely unprofessional," making repeated remarks about "smart asses." Tony says that he informed them that he would be suing, and one of the officers responded, "We'll see who gets sued."